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| Bringing Down The House |
| Genre |
Comedy |
| Starring |
Steve Martin |
| Director |
Adam Shankman |
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“Bringing Down The House” directed by Adam Shankman (“The Wedding Planner”) features good leading performances, but is stuck treading in shallow comic waters.
Steve Martin plays Peter Sanderson, a tax lawyer who thinks he's met a brainy female attorney on-line, an attractive blond one, according to the picture she sends. But when Charlene Morton (Queen Latifah) shows up at his house for a date, she turns out to be an escaped African-American convict.
Charlene won’t leave Peter alone until he agrees to clear her name from a crime for which she was framed. Along the way Charlene helps Peter loosen up and become more hip, so he can get back with his ex-wife Kate (Jean Smart) and reconnect with his teenage daughter Sarah (Kimberly J. Brown) and younger son Georgey (Angus T. Jones).
Martin and Latifah make the most out of what the film gives them. Once Latifah tones down Charlene's early shrillness, her innate warmth comes through, and Martin reminds us of his physical comedy gifts, particularly in a loose-limbed hip-hop dance routine he performs while visiting a nightclub in the 'hood. (But one can’t help thinking this routine was fresher when Warren Beatty did it five years ago in "Bulworth").
The film's scene-stealer is Eugene Levy (“American Pie”) as Howie Rottman, a tax attorney who instantly falls for Charlene. Although Howie looks like a square, he knows the language of the streets and regularly delivers homeboy come-ons. Aside from the instant laughs that Levy brings, the character of Howie serves an important purpose, acting as a "cool" foil to Martin's painfully unhip slice of white bread. The humor behind the concept of every black being down and every white being a geek is getting awfully old, and the character of Howie gives it a nice twist.
Despite Howie’s character, the film is filled with unpleasant racial stereotypes that it tries over and over to play for laughs. The movie's black people are generally loudmouths and/or hoods, and most of the white folks are Wonder Bread bland or flat-out racist. Just the sight of a young African American woman in a public place is enough to send most of them into a tailspin of shock, and a few get insulting. Charlene is called "Jemima" and "Shaniqwa," and a smarmy, young colleague calls her "sistah." A wealthy heiress insists on singing an old Southern spiritual that's an offensive ode to slavery.
The film's pretense may be that it's reproaching white racism, but there are moments here that seem to cross the line. This could easily have been forgiven if the film went about it in a more creative and witty manner.
BOTTOM LINE: “Bringing down the House” is fast-paced enough to be reasonably entertaining, but fails to be very clever in its stereotypical humor. C to C+ |
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| "We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then question the manner in which I provide it." |
- Jack Nicholson
A Few Good Men
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Distributed Beers
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| 5 |
Sierra Nevada Bigfoot |
| 4 |
Guinness Draught |
| 3 |
Newcastle Brown Ale |
| 2 |
Bass Pale Ale |
| 1 |
Samuel Adams Boston Lager |
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